While we’re busy pampering our gnarly tootsies and slogging along mile after mile, many of us are neglecting our upper body and core. I know, it’s tough to care about the body parts you think won’t help shave seconds off your latest PR. Still, who wants the equivalent of chicken legs for arms? I call these Kermit the Frog arms.

The point is, to be as healthy and efficient as possible, upper body is also important. As important as sticking to your marathon training? Well, incorporating upper body and especially core can help.

Think about it. Your cadence includes arm swing right? I hope so. It’s good to have balance. Your core includes a ton of huge muscles, so you’re kidding yourself if you think skipping core is doing you any favors. Plus, those of us who aren’t elites probably do it for the love of running and, well, to eat food and drink beer. Ever been to an ultra? Beer is big. Heard of Running for Brews? You guessed it.

This took me about 20 minutes, so it easily can fit into a short run day or on a crosstrain day. I just started this, but intend to incorporate it into my routine 2-3x per week in addition to my marathon training. I’ll probably work more core into my own program as well. A strong core does everybody good.

A few other core exercises I want to include:

ball pike

burpees

ball passes

side planks

I may even try a 30 day ab challenge. We’ll see how it goes.

Toss in chest presses and rows and you’ve got a nice upper body circuit for general strength training (you won’t get big, but you’ll get stronger than you are now!)